<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
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 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Thawed',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/12/19.jpg" alt="The trees on my street, free from ice" class="framed-centred-image" width="809" height="480"/>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		The ice has finally melted from the trees and other plants in the area.
		That&apos;s a relief.
		We don&apos;t need any more broken branches or fallen trees caused by the weight of the ice, nor do we need plants to freeze to death.
	</p>
	<p>
		I had a closing shift at work today, so I worked the drive-though window.
		That made it a nice and easy work day.
	</p>
	<p>
		While on my break at work, one of my coworkers showed me how to repair a broken cigarette.
		As they put it, <q>a broken cigarette isn&apos;t really a broken cigarette.</q> They said that the result is a bit ghetto, but it works.
		It was interesting to learn, but it&apos;s a skill that will never be of any use to me.
		I&apos;m not stupid enough to take up smoking myself.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I had a strange dream last night in which I was running around a multi-floored university nude.
		I forget where I was trying to get, but I wore myself out to the point where I was wheezing.
		For the most part, people ignored the fact that I was nude, but someone that I think was the superintendent didn&apos;t.
		They told me that I needed to wear clothing while in the school, so I sarcastically replied that I&apos;d review the dress code.
		Even in my dreams, sarcasm is clearly a big part of who I am.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		When providing feedback after grading <a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit2">one of my past assignments</a>, the professor told me that I couldn&apos;t use singular &quot;they&quot; because it was &quot;improper&quot;.
		They said that they realized that I don&apos;t like singular pronouns, but that I&apos;d have to use them anyway.
		In the next assignment, I didn&apos;t even have a need for pronouns to refer to people, but in this <a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit5">last assignment</a>, I clarified my position.
		I thought that I&apos;d been clear before, but I made it clear this time that I have no problem with singular pronouns, and that <strong>*gendered pronouns*</strong> are what I avoid.
		I didn&apos;t get into the fact that singular &quot;they&quot; has been used in English for centuries, but I did instead use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Spivak_pronoun">Spivak pronouns</a>, explain that I typically use singular &quot;they&quot; to avoid confusing people, and explain that if need be, I am more than happy to use the pronoun &quot;it&quot; if Spivak pronouns aren&apos;t good enough.
		Though I didn&apos;t phrase it quite like this, I&apos;ll use any pronoun they like provided that it&apos;s ungendered; I won&apos;t use &quot;he&quot; or &quot;she&quot; unless it&apos;s in the pair &quot;he/she&quot;, which gets pretty awkward, especially when the sex and/or gender <strong>*is*</strong> known to the reader.
		I was totally prepared to deal with the professor insisting that I use &quot;he&quot; and &quot;she&quot;, in which case I&apos;d have to explain via email how awkward &quot;he/she&quot; is when sexes and genders are known and that my only other option is to avoid pronouns altogether, which is also awkward.
		However, the professor instead told me that in future writing, I should use singular &quot;they&quot;.
		That&apos;s practically an admission that I&apos;d chosen the correct ungendered option the first time in their opinion.
	</p>
	<p>
		I started work on my <a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit6">learning journal entry</a> for the week, though I&apos;ve only gotten about forty percent done.
		Deciding on time-bound goals that I actually have isn&apos;t an easy task, and I need five of them.
		Technically, the assignment calls for &quot;four or five&quot;, but if you know me at all, you know that to me that means &quot;five&quot;.
		I might reflect on a <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/UNIV1001/#Unit9">past assignment from another course</a> for inspiration tomorrow.
		Some of the goals that I listed in that assignment were related to the cleanup of this website, and I&apos;ve completed those already.
		One goal has even been removed from my list, as it was to be more active on Twitter.
		Now that Twitter is demanding a telephone number from new registrants, I&apos;ve quit using Twitter entirely.
		My account is unaffected by the change, and I can continue to use the account without telephone service, but I can&apos;t encourage other people to register new accounts there, so I shouldn&apos;t be using Twitter much, if any.
	</p>
	<p>
		As a side not, it feels so strange being able to link to partially-completed versions of my learning journal assignments, which is a thing that I can now do because my learning journal assignments are now on a separate page from my regular journal entries, so they don&apos;t need to be complete before being uploaded to this website.
	</p>
	<p>
		Feeling like I was unable to make any more progress on my learning journal entry, I went back to my discussion assignment for the week.
		I can&apos;t complete it yet because not enough students have posted (I just need <strong>*one*</strong> more student to post!), but I did get two of my replies out of the way:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			What specific and measurable goals were set at your audit firm? Were you the one setting those goals, or were you following goals set by higher management? How did your firm make sure that audits were conducted in a fair, objective, and unbiased way? In what way did poor audit results impact the clients that you were auditing?
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It makes sense that you can&apos;t communicate the goals and objectives to your subordinates/followers if you don&apos;t have a thorough understanding of those goals and objectives yourself.
		</p>
		<p>
			How was the purchase of the next year&apos;s supplies minimized? Did the supply check-out system keep people more accountable for which supplies that they took so that they&apos;d take only what they needed and not extra? Were keys revoked from people that shouldn&apos;t have them so that these people had to go through the proper channels to get supplies from the warehouse?
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
